Page 57 of Formula Chance

“It will work,” I insist, my stomach twisting despite my confident tone.

He shakes his head, sighing heavily. “Fine. But if this blows up in our faces, it’s on you.”

“Understood,” I say firmly, refusing to let his doubt undermine my resolve, although I feel slightly sick at the fallout if I’m wrong.

On the monitors, the starting grid is now fully lined up. The five red lights slowly blink on one by one. When all of them are lit, there’s a second or two of apprehension. Then they extinguish and the race is on.

Nash’s start is clean, his car surging forward as he holds his position into Turn 1. Matthieu is super aggressive right off the line, and that’s not a bad thing at all. I watch his telemetry closely as he dives into the first corner, gaining two positions in the opening sequence.

“Good start,” Petr relays over the radio. “You’re P6. Keep the pace steady.”

The opening laps are tense but uneventful for Nash. Alex, his engineer, provides him with updates on the cars ahead, while I monitor the gaps between him and the leaders. He’s holding P3 solidly, keeping pressure on Lex and Carlos, but not overextending himself.

For Matthieu, the soft tires are doing their job—his pace is blistering in the early stages, and he moves up to P5. My heart lifts slightly. The gamble will pay off. I’m sure of it.

“Matthieu’s times are strong,” I say to Hendrik, not hiding the hint of vindication in my voice.

“For now,” he mutters, not looking at me.

But only five laps later, it starts to go sideways. The degradation on Matthieu’s tires starts to show. His lap times are creeping upward, and the telemetry confirms the wear on the soft tires. The undercut window is opening, and we need to act fast.

“Petr,” I say, leaning into the mic. “Box Matthieu this lap. We’re going for the undercut.”

Petr relays the message, and Matthieu acknowledges it curtly. He pits smoothly, the crew executing the stop with a change to medium tires in just over two seconds.

“Clean stop,” Petr confirms as Matthieu re-enters the race, now behind his closest competitors. “You’re in P14. Push hard on the out-lap.”

The undercut is a high-risk, high-reward strategy, and if Matthieu can execute a strong out-lap, he has a shot at jumping several cars when they decide to pit.

But almost immediately, the plan starts to unravel.

“Traffic ahead,” Petr reports, his tone tense. “You’ve got three cars on slower compounds.”

My stomach sinks. Matthieu is stuck behind a trio of midfield runners, unable to capitalize on his fresh tires. “Fucking ridiculous,” his voice crackles over the comms. “Why weren’t these cars taken into consideration?”

I glance at all the data. Did I make a mistake somewhere?

I watch as Matthieu finally makes it past the blockage but by the time the other cars enter into their first pit, he hasn’t gained any positions. In fact, he’s lost ground.

“Bex,” Hendrik says sharply, “I told you this was a mistake.”

I grit my teeth, refusing to respond. There’s still time for Matthieu to recover, but the frustration in his voice over the radio is palpable.

“These tires are already going off,” Matthieu snaps. “What’s the plan now?”

Petr relays the concern to me, and I scramble to come up with an adjustment. The gap to get back into the top ten—which is where you get points—is widening, and Matthieu’s lap times are dropping rapidly.

“We’ll have to extend this stint and hope for a safety car,” I say, knowing it’s a long shot. Hendrik gives me a look that says he knows it too.

That means everything is out of my control because there’s not enough race left to adjust to improve his time. We can only take advantage if someone else makes a mistake.

Meanwhile, Nash is running a textbook race. His tires are holding up well, and he’s maintaining P3 while gradually closing the gap to Carlos still in P2.

“Pace is strong, Nash,” Alex says over the radio. “Keep it steady. Box in two laps for hards.”

Nash pits as planned, the stop clean and efficient. He rejoins in P4 but quickly regains P3 as the cars ahead cycle through their stops. His race is calm, controlled and exactly what we need.

Matthieu’s, on the other hand, is a disaster. The gamble on the soft tires and the early pit stop has backfired spectacularly. By lap forty-five, he’s only gained P12, his pace a shadow of what it was in the opening laps.

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